Metaphors
Approaches to metaphor: Structure, classifications, cognate phenomena
HELEN V. SHELESTIUK
Abstract
The article aspires to present a systematized view on the contemporary understanding of metaphor essence and structure, reviews various classifications of metaphor, and discusses cognate ‘similarity-based’ phenomena in natural language. The opposing views on metaphor as a three- and twocomponent structure are reconciled in the article through the analysis of di¤erent kinds of metaphors. Three types of classifications of metaphor — semantic, structural and functional — are specified and reviewed. Finally, the article examines the cognate phenomena, viz. metaphoric personification (prosopopoeia, pathetic fallacy, apostrophe), animalification, metaphoric antonomasia, metaphoric allusion, metaphoric periphrasis, synesthesia, allegory, and metaphoric symbolism.
Possibly no other complex semiotic phenomenon has received such a broad theoretic coverage as metaphor. Aristotle, Rousseau, Lomonosov, Hegel, Nietzsche, Cassirer, Ortega-y-Gasset, Ricouer and other prominent thinkers have tapped at the ontological roots of metaphor; in philology and linguistics (including theory of literature, etymology, linguistic pragmatics, and cognitive linguistics) the concept of metaphor has been developed by such deceased and living scholars as A. Kuhn,
M. Mu¨ller, A. Potebnya, I. A. Richards, M. Black, R. Jakobson, K.
Burke, P. Wheelwright, C. Brook-Rose, L. J. Cohen, J. Searle, S. Levin,
G. Lako¤, M. Johnson, R. Gibbs, A. Paivio, A. Ortony, T. Todorov, U.
Eco, V. P. Grigoryev, N. D. Arutyunova, S. M. Mezenin, and many others. Despite the variety of approaches to metaphor as a phenomenon the views on its nature and structure are essentially alike. Aristotle in his On the Art of Poetry wrote that one should see similarities in order to create a good metaphor (Aristotle 1984: 669). His definition of metaphor as a
Semiotica 161–1/4 (2006), 333–343 0037–1998/06/0161–0333
DOI
HELEN V. SHELESTIUK
Abstract
The article aspires to present a systematized view on the contemporary understanding of metaphor essence and structure, reviews various classifications of metaphor, and discusses cognate ‘similarity-based’ phenomena in natural language. The opposing views on metaphor as a three- and twocomponent structure are reconciled in the article through the analysis of di¤erent kinds of metaphors. Three types of classifications of metaphor — semantic, structural and functional — are specified and reviewed. Finally, the article examines the cognate phenomena, viz. metaphoric personification (prosopopoeia, pathetic fallacy, apostrophe), animalification, metaphoric antonomasia, metaphoric allusion, metaphoric periphrasis, synesthesia, allegory, and metaphoric symbolism.
Possibly no other complex semiotic phenomenon has received such a broad theoretic coverage as metaphor. Aristotle, Rousseau, Lomonosov, Hegel, Nietzsche, Cassirer, Ortega-y-Gasset, Ricouer and other prominent thinkers have tapped at the ontological roots of metaphor; in philology and linguistics (including theory of literature, etymology, linguistic pragmatics, and cognitive linguistics) the concept of metaphor has been developed by such deceased and living scholars as A. Kuhn,
M. Mu¨ller, A. Potebnya, I. A. Richards, M. Black, R. Jakobson, K.
Burke, P. Wheelwright, C. Brook-Rose, L. J. Cohen, J. Searle, S. Levin,
G. Lako¤, M. Johnson, R. Gibbs, A. Paivio, A. Ortony, T. Todorov, U.
Eco, V. P. Grigoryev, N. D. Arutyunova, S. M. Mezenin, and many others. Despite the variety of approaches to metaphor as a phenomenon the views on its nature and structure are essentially alike. Aristotle in his On the Art of Poetry wrote that one should see similarities in order to create a good metaphor (Aristotle 1984: 669). His definition of metaphor as a
Semiotica 161–1/4 (2006), 333–343 0037–1998/06/0161–0333
DOI
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